According to Smith, TheYoung American contained limited traditional newspaper content but it was more of a literary publication. The paper included politics, poetry, short stories, anecdotes and other timeless items. See below.

“A boy named James A. Booth published a manuscript paper in Downieville in 1858. It was called the Schoolboys’ Echo, and was good enough to draw strong praise from Calvin B. McDonald, at that time editor of the Trinity Journal. McDonald only mentioned two issues of the Echo, although there may have been more.”

Volume and Issue Data: According to Smith, 21 numbers (16 issues surviving) Saturdays, beginning, April 17, 1858, and then Wednesdays, June 23, 1858 until September 8, 1858.

Size and Format: About 9 x 11 inches

Editor/Publisher: John McLean Harrington

Title Changes and Continuation: None

General Description and Notes:

According to Smith, The Nation. contained traditional newspaper content but concentrated on the politics of the Democrats. Occasionally Harrington called it The Nation. and used a period in the name.

The Nation, whose motto was “The majority must rule; the minority must submit,” contains verses, essays, an announcement of a Democratic party meeting, an advertising rates chart, and miscellany written by John McLean Harrington. In the first issue, Harrington, who would have been about 19 years old at the time, declares his political partisanship by announcing that The Nation will be “strictly Democratic” (p. 4).

A Thomas E. Knight, who may have been the editor of this paper, was a ship builder and “selectman” in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, in the mid-19th century. He was involved with at least two legislative petitions in 1852 to (1) raise money to purchase a Portland, ME, bridge, and (2) deal with some sort of dispute between the city of Cape Elizabeth and a Randall Skilling.